


It has always been forever, for me

by siriuslydraco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Outlander AU, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:43:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11441115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: "I seem to have fallen through time"in which Sansa Stark is thrown back to a time where being British in a land full of Scots is not a good thing.





	It has always been forever, for me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qinaliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qinaliel/gifts).



> So for this au I have decided to split the asoiaf universe in two. Which basically means some characters will be from the year 1945 and others will belong in 1743. It was a way for me to put all characters into the story without them all belonging in the time of our protagonist, Sansa Stark. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Thank you so much to the lovely qinaliel for giving me the title! I really appreciate your help

**_Oxfordshire. Great Britain. October 1945._ **

It had seemed like a good idea when kept silent and musing in her head. But then again, Sansa Stark always did have a whimsical and free way of thinking that brought upon the most ridiculous of ideas. She stood now, blue eyes cautiously waging the reaction of Oxfordshire's most renowned florist while holding a bunch of freshly clipped blue roses. 

"Scotland?" Margaery finally found her words, her voice an incredulous laugh. She rolled her eyes at Sansa as she carried on pulling and rearranging her latest wildflower ensemble while managing to keep that look of far away concentration on her face. Sansa often wondered whether Marg ever really listened to what she said at all, or if she said words to fill the spaces that would have been silent without them. She certainly had that air about her now; that she would rather be doing anything other than listening to Sansa talk about another one of her adventurous proposals. 

Margaery had rolled her eyes and feigned interest in the same way when Sansa had proposed the idea of becoming a war nurse. Little did she know at the time that Sansa would become just that, nursing and healing hundreds of wounded men. Sansa had huffed idignantly at Margaery's ignorance to the matters of war then, and she did so now as she threw down the roses on the counter top. 

"I'm very serious, Margaery" Sansa told her with one hand clasping itself on her hip. Margaery just continued plucking the purple heather and white lilies that were encased in her grandmother's prized crystal vase. 

"I'm sure you are" Margaery had a certain beauty about her that belonged on the silver screen alongside Irene Dunne and Ava Gardner, one that made someone feel faint when she looked at them. Sansa was well used to it by now, having been friends since they were fifteen, but she could never get used to the judging look that rested in her brown eyes "just like you were sure you were going to France to teach English, or that you were going to open a seamstresses or become a midwife"

"They were dreams I had before the war. And you know why I couldn't chase them" Sansa tells her, walking away from her and pacing around the wide and bright room that served as Margaery's florist shop. It was blue and gold all over, with lace trimming over the register desk and china tea cups hanging on silver hooks from the walls. It was all so prim and proper that Sansa felt like smashing every piece of it. War and death had ruined whatever primness Sansa had left. 

"Yes yes, because you were off saving lives while the rest of us stayed here blissfully ignorant to the ravages of Europe" the Tyrell girl sounded sarcastic but Sansa wishes to tell her that her jesting words were correct. That was exactly what had transpired, but she kept her words behind her lips and eyes Margaery as she spins back around to face her. 

"Is it so bad that I would want to leave here for a little while, and not have to worry about coming back?" Sansa asks with a sigh, one so heavy she swore it made the heather in the bouquet rustle with it. Margaery sighs in return as she puts down her clipping sheers and the look on her face is pure exasperation as she eyes the red head before her. 

"Why would you, an unmarried woman want to travel alone? The war may be over Sansa, but people still abide by the same customs as always. Women don't venture out alone without a husband, and definitely not somewhere as wild as Scotland" 

 _She may be pretty, but she is small minded_. Sansa's mothers voice echoes in her head then as she looks upon Margaery, and she is reminded of the time when Robb had expressed his desire to marry her. Maybe her mother had been right, Margaery had always been content with the idea of staying here and abiding by traditions and customs bestowed on them by English culture, but Sansa was not so persuaded. Not anymore at least. 

"I don't think Scotland has been wild for many years Marg, not in the way you're imagining anyway" Sansa tells her with a frown "and besides both my parents ancestors where from Scottish clans. I feel I should go there. For....historical purposes, and familial ones of course"  

There is a look then that flashes across Margaery's face that makes Sansa feel an uncomfortable shiver roll through her body. It's a look of realisation, one that told Sansa she was utterly transparent in that moment. She shifted a little on her feet, her arms folding tightly across her waist. 

"This idea of yours is not about your family tree at all, is it? Would it have anything to do with the question I'm sure Harrold is going to ask you soon enough?" Margaery's love for gossip and social intrigue is evident in her eyes then as they flash with a girly giddiness that would once have set Sansa's excitement alight. But there is no air of excitement around Sansa now, and she finds her heart pounds in her chest as her friend steps closer to her. 

"No, of course not" Sansa shakes her head of red curls and looks anywhere but the face of Margaery, which would prove impossible if Sansa was a man. 

"Sansa darling, I can tell you're running away from something. And your life is certainly not the most scandalous, so there's really nothing else you're trying to put off" if Margaery was anyone other than Sansa's best friend she might have stormed off in the other direction at the sly snub, but she stays rooted where she is, blue eyes fixed on brown. 

A mixture of emotions were bubbling up inside her; ones of annoyance that Margaery could so easily see the true nature of her plans to visit the highlands, and an anger at herself for never being able to let herself be happy. Whenever an opportunity of good fortune came along she saw it fit to turn the other way, to run from anything that would tie her down. And perhaps Harrold Hardyng was an anchor to Oxfordshire she was not willing to tie herself to.

They had met at an officers dinner while she had served time off from patching up and sewing young men back together, and there was a warmth in his deep blue eyes she had not been acquainted with while on the battlefield. But like all warm things the feeling had tempered, and soon enough Sansa had found his conversation idle and his kisses to be that of an unskilled lover. Harry however, could never pick up on Sansa's sudden disinterest and was making plans for the future that Sansa was altogether uncomfortable with.

"I'm not running away" Sansa gives a shake of her head, to convince herself or Margaery she was uncertain "perhaps I'm stalling, maybe I just need time to think on what the future will hold" 

"Or perhaps it's the past you need to think on" 

Margaery's words run through her like a knife, cold and sharp and they leave an ache in her she thought she had buried. Perhaps flitting from one thing to the other and always avoiding things of importance was Sansa's way of forgetting things, and Margaery's distraction came in the shape of roses and wildflowers. They all had their ways of coping with the trauma the war had left behind and Sansa would prefer to leave the past in its grave, but the girl that stands before her wants to exhume it and dust of its skeleton. 

"Marg don't" Sansa warns her, the eyes she got from her mother flashing with a warning that would have rivaled gun fire. 

"You may think me shallow Sansa, that I am ignorant of greater matters. That I am blissfully unaware of anything other than flowers or your darling brother who is the greatest husband in the world" at the mention of Robb, Sansa cannot help the small smile that cracks her stony facade "but I am not. I don't pretend to know the horror that you witnessed, or how it felt to try to save men and fail. But I know you, and I can see the affect the war has had on you. You're letting yourself be denied of happiness by running away from it all the time"

"I just need time. Time away from Oxfordshire, and from Harry" a pale hand runs through her red hair, a soft tremble coursing through her body. 

"The war has been over months now, you've had your time Sansa. I don't think dwelling on the past is good for you. Think about your father, think about how happy he'd want you to be" Margaery's words seem to affect Sansa in ways she detests. Despite the fact all she ever talks about is small town gossip and flowers she always seems to dig deep into the roots of Sansa's most buried places, clutching them and dragging them out. Margaery is well used to gardening and doesn't mind being cut by thorns. 

"If my father were alive he would tell me to go" Sansa tells her with a shaking voice but she holds herself together at the mention of her father and does not break like she should. It's been a while since her father had been killed in the war, along with her youngest sibling Rickon, and the pain never relents. While Rickon had been a young and hopeful soldier with dreams of defeating the German defences, Eddard Stark had been wise and stoic. In her mind he had always been untouchable, invincible even, but maybe all young girls thought that of their fathers. But she had learned the hard way that not everyone was untouched by the hand of death. 

"Sansa, you'll be all alone, in a place you're not familiar with. What if something happens to you? We won't hear of it" the florists words are hasty and she takes Sansa's hand in hers as she steps towards her, a fierce light in her eyes that is blazing with pleas "why not ask Harry to come along? It'll be romantic and then he could pop the question there!" 

"Maybe I don't want him to pop the question!" Sansa rips her hand away from Margaery's and turns her back once again, her crystalline blue eyes staring out the window and onto the Oxfordshire countryside that sprawls behind the cottages and small family owned shops. All her life she's looked upon those hills and rivers, and even when she left to become a combat nurse it was only fields of dead and wounded men she looked upon. How glorious it would be, she thinks, to gaze upon something so unfamiliar and untouched by ruin. The Scottish highlands, although steeped in battle and destruction, had lay there peacefully serene for centuries and the rolling hills called to her in her dreams. 

"You don't? Then why string the poor lad along all this time!" Margaery huffs, her hands grasping her hips tightly and her brown eyes cruelly narrowed "he's good friends with Robb and you know how upset your brother would be if you were just playing his friend this whole time" 

"Oh would you forget about Robb for a second! Not everything revolves around my brother" Sansa turns back around to tell her "and besides I'm not stringing Harry along. I'm very fond of him, and I don't wish any ill will on him either. I'm just.....I'm not in love with him. Not like I should be. I could grow to love him I'm sure, he's a good man but I need time away from him....from _this_ for a while. Just so I can truly know if I want to give him that chance" 

"Nothing I say is going to stop you is it?" Margaery asks her and Sansa shakes her head, a look in her eyes that is akin to stone and there is nothing in them that suggests second thoughts. 

"No, nothing could. I won't be gone long. It'll just be a holiday, just a month or so. Just so I can get myself back to where I once was" she turns around again, eyes intently staring out the window. 

"So, Scotland eh?" there is a small laugh in Margaery's tone that is solely for the purpose of turning the conversation lighter, but Sansa does not join in with her sudden change of mood. Instead she lets her eyes wander past the top of the post office and the shoe makers that is opposite where she stands, and all the way over to the highest green hill beyond. As she stares she finds they shift and change, and the small Oxfordshire town dwindles to shadows and the green she can see turns to highlands. A smile appears on her face then, a genuine one that is scarce these days. 

"Yes, Margaery" Sansa says "Scotland" 

 


End file.
